Chapter Twenty
On the evening they’d agreed to kayak, Jackie wore a thick sweater and pulled a winter hat from her bedroom closet. She’d received an email from Alex confirming their date a few days before, but when she’d tapped out her reply, she’d never expected such chilling weather. Twice she’d drafted emails to cancel, but her fingers obeyed her heart and not her brain. Besides, what harm was there in a simple kayak outing?
Heavy winds earlier in the day had blown down the tent covering the dolphin tank at the Center and had caused damage throughout the headlands and in other parts of the park bordering the coast. But now the sky was clear, almost harshly bright, the winds had calmed, and the temperature was dropping rapidly as the sun neared the horizon.
She stopped in her living room and flicked off the baseball game she’d been studying. She imagined it might take years before she really understood the sport.
What she’d learned only increased her respect for the players. For one player in particular. It turned out that the batting title Alex was chasing was almost impossible to achieve. Even the diehard baseball fans among her colleagues remarked about how hard he was pushing. Being an All Star nine years in a row was pretty damn good, they’d agreed. But she was beginning to think she understood what Alex was after. He’d set a goal and was determined to achieve it; she would’ve done the same.
But it wasn't just his drive for achievement and excellence that called out to her; those drives she understood. It was the unfamiliar drives that he'd roused that nearly obsessed her, that tore her mind from her work and haunted her dreams.
She tossed her parka onto the seat of her truck and jumped in, then lifted up to pull out the scraper she’d used that morning to clear ice from her windshield.
She drove the main street of Sausalito as it curved along the west side of San Francisco Bay. Gulls circled overhead, dark slashes against rosy fingers of sunset-streaked clouds. The tourist shops selling T-shirts and hats were just closing. A few tourists straggled by licking at ice cream cones and laughing. How they could eat ice cream in such cold weather was beyond her.
She reached the little cove that was home to OceanTrek Kayaks and walked down to the small crescent of beach. Two kayaks were lined up and waiting at the shore. One of the OceanTrek employees walked down the sloping beach toward her.
“If you decide not to go out in this, we can give you a rain check,” he said.
“I’ll check in with my friend and let you know,” she said.
“No need. Just leave the boats on the beach if you change your mind.” He gave her an assessing look. “You both know how to handle these?”
She nodded.
Apparently satisfied, he turned and walked up the sandy slope and back to his office.
She blew on her hands. The wind might have died down, but the chill was enough to make her pull the hood of her parka over her wool cap and snug it tight around her neck. She paced the beach as she waited, as much from nerves as to keep warm. At five thirty she called Alex’s cellphone. A machine-generated voice told her stiffly that the customer was out of reach.
She headed for her truck and closed the door against the cold. Drumming her fingers on the steering wheel, she considered her options. Alex wouldn’t be late, not this time. She might not have much experience with men, but she felt in her bones that their date was as significant to him as it was to her. Something had kept him away.
She typed Tavonesi into her phone and pulled up the name of the vineyard Alex’s family owned. When she punched the coordinates for Trovare Vineyard into the weather page, a killer-frost warning flashed orange across the screen.
It made sense. Cloudless, windless nights were the likeliest to bring hard frosts.
She pulled her phone closer and checked the weather map. Trovare Vineyard was only a short distance from the last batch of samples she’d taken. Samples that had shown the highest volume of radon and nitrates.
She squinted at the screen. It looked like the property was maybe half a mile from the river. She’d check the location against the map the Grower’s Association had sent her.
Suddenly she felt stupid for not having asked him about the fertilizers before. Of course he’d know the area. She’d just assumed that their place was in Napa. Gage had given her a bottle of Trovare wine. It had a Napa address, not Sonoma. Or had it? Maybe she’d read it wrong. Maybe she’d just wished that Alex’s vineyard was in Napa.
What else had she missed? The fact that she hadn’t asked him before this only told her how deep she’d fallen. It was time to climb out. She’d meant to talk to him after the day at the ballpark, but then Claire had called and her brains had scrambled.
She started her truck and pulled out of the lot, turning south toward the tunnel leading to the headlands, heading toward home.
But then she swerved, made a U-turn in the turnout and headed north, toward Trovare.
What she expected to find, what she thought she’d do when she arrived, she didn’t know. But she’d made a commitment to go after what she wanted and though it frightened her to her boots to admit it, she wanted Alex. The questions about the farming practices in the region seemed like a simple issue compared to what she was really risking.
She hadn’t dreamed she’d ever again let a man get so close to her heart. But her dreams and fantasies proved that he’d breached her defenses, and she was going to deal. The man had her attention. He was gorgeous, driven, dedicated. And he had her number. She didn’t know if she should be pleased that he was interested enough to try to understand her or afraid that he’d been so successful at it. And didn’t that say something about her mixed-up, defensive heart.
As she’d lain awake, unable to sleep because thoughts and images of him were so vivid, she’d cursed him for his perception, for challenging her rather than running off when she pushed back at him. But she was also excited; along with the deep yearning he'd awakened had come an undeniable desire for wholeness. A hope for love.
Her life had seemed simple before he’d shown up at the Center on that stormy night—had it only been five months ago? She knew how to analyze data, how to study what was and wasn’t true. And burying herself in her work hadn’t succeeded in healing anything. If she didn't explore the fire he'd ignited and face the fierce force of wanting he'd unleashed, she was sure the effort to ignore them would continue to derail her. She might as well face the fire he’d lit straight on and see if she could handle the heat. Heat was a transformative power, after all.
Asking him questions about crops and fertilizers would be the easy part.
Forty minutes later, she exited the freeway and headed northeast. Darkness fell swiftly, and she was grateful for the moonlight that helped light the way. It struck her as odd that the few streetlights that did exist weren’t lit. At the side of the narrow road, a deer raised its head, startled, and she slowed to a safer speed.
She tried Alex’s cell again and got the same recording. At a bend in the road, she saw why. One of the cell towers was down; it must’ve been blown over by the high winds that morning. The winds hadn’t brought the rain everyone had expected. Dry, cold conditions and a hard frost did not bode well for farmers who hadn’t yet brought in vulnerable crops.
About five miles farther along, the beam of her headlights lit the sign for Trovare Vineyards. She turned up the drive and swerved around branches that had blown onto the road.
At the crest of a hill she saw the outlines of a building in the distance. No, not a building. A castle. She squinted, unsure of her eyes. When she pulled onto the circular cobbled drive in front of it, she sat in her truck and stared. Not that she hadn’t seen a few castles in her day—several of her friends lived in them back in England. But in California? It astounded her.
The structure was dark except for moonlight reflecting off a window in a distant tower. The rest of the vast building was just a shadowed silhouette against the night sky.
A wavering light to the east of the castle caught her ey
e. She pulled out her binoculars. It looked like a fire, flanked by men who appeared to be dancing around it. She grabbed a flashlight and headed toward the flames.
As she maneuvered along the rows of grapes, she saw the profile of huge fans among the rows of vines much further toward the horizon. Their spinning blades made them look like airplane motors fallen from an errant jet. But there weren’t any fans in the section of the vineyard where she walked.
She ducked through a gap in the vines and blinked. About a hundred yards away, two men waved huge winglike devices strapped to their arms. If she hadn’t known better, she might’ve thought they were oversized fairies.
She turned and saw Alex digging near a trench of fire.
Drenched in sweat and smudged with soot, he looked like a blacksmith manning some mythical forge. His shirt clung to him, accentuating his muscles and the rhythm of his movements. Gnarled vines flanked him, lit by the firelight licking across them and casting macabre shadows onto the path. Rough, with thick, knobbed trunks, the vines here were older than those she’d passed nearer the castle.
He looked up and stopped moving. Shadows flickered across his face. Her pulse beat hard and fast in her throat. Time stopped. Then Alex squinted and wiped the back of his glove across his brow as he shook his head.
“Jackie?”
“Expecting anyone else?” she said, sounding more composed than she felt.
“The phones are out,” he said. “The cell tower blew down.”
“I noticed. And I do know how to read a weather report.” She tried to keep her tone casual, measured, but the emotions rushing through her made her voice waver. She opened her arms toward the fire and the vines. “When I saw the frost alert, I thought you might be rather busy tonight.” She stepped closer and lifted a shovel that lay near the trenched fire. “Let me help you this time.”
He didn’t move, only stared at her. “You knew about the vineyard?”
She leaned against the handle of the shovel. “Was it a secret? Michael Albright told me.”
A spark landed on Alex’s hand. He batted it away and looked back to her. She knew he was watching for a sign. For a signal. It thrilled her more than she wanted to admit.
“And Gage gave me a bottle of wine—another of his not-so-subtle hints for me to be nicer to you. It had a map on the label.” She nodded her head in the direction of the castle. “But you could’ve told me about that.”
“Do most guys go around describing their houses to you?”
“Most guys don’t live in a castle,” she said, hefting the shovel.
“Wait.” He pulled a pair of stained gloves from his back pocket. “Use these.”
The gloves were loose, but she was grateful to have them.
One of the men with the wings shouted at Alex in Spanish.
“A la derecha,” Alex answered and pointed down the row of vines.
“Gage tells me I don’t pay enough attention to the world outside the Center,” she said when he turned back to her. She bent and speared the shovel into the dirt, scooped some up and mounded it along the side of the trench.
“Easy,” he cautioned. “Eight or ten inches should do it. We’re taking the fire trench to the end of this row.” He wiped his sleeve across his brow again. “I just want to contain it.” As he levered up an enormous shovelful of dirt, he caught her eye. “I don’t want to save a few grapes and burn down the rest of the vineyard.”
“So practical,” she teased. “Hadn’t expected it. But where’s your crew?”
“We hire as a cooperative. We scheduled them for next week. It was a mistake. It happens. This freeze caught us all off guard.”
She averted her eyes and shoveled another mound of dirt. He stepped close and they dug side by side. The rhythm of her movements matched his, but she couldn’t scoop out nearly as much of the heavy soil as he could.
They worked in near silence, moving smoothly in the night, until a sharp crack sounded, followed by the snap of a burning branch as it collapsed in the center of the trench. Sparks crackled and swirled around them. Alex leapt to her and pulled her head to his chest, rubbing his gloves roughly across her hair. As his body enveloped her, the acrid smell of burnt hair mixed with the unmistakable scent of man. He backed away and pulled the band from her ponytail.
“Shake it out,” he directed. “I don’t want the help burning up either.”
Bending at the waist she shook out her hair, running her hands through it as she did.
“I’m not on fire,” she said as she straightened.
He smiled, but she saw the fatigue and worry in his eyes. And something else. Something that in the dancing firelight looked more than primal. If she hadn’t known him, it would’ve scared her. It was hunger, a hunger she knew in herself and had tried hard to ignore. But in him... Seeing it through his eyes, focused on her, it stole her breath.
She gained it back when he looked away.
He scanned the vines near them and, apparently certain they weren’t going to burst into flames, he toed along the trench they’d extended to the end of the row.
“It’s deep enough. Take a break.” He took a step away, then turned back to her. “Thanks.” He put his hand gently on her arm. “I mean... thank you. For coming.”
“A date’s a date,” she said, smiling. He put his other hand on her arm and turned her to him. Her smile faded when she saw the look in his eyes.
“I took your conditions for a date to heart,” he said. “I want you to know that.”
“If I’d thought you hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”
He leaned down and kissed her forehead. She took in a breath and shut her eyes. No kiss had ever meant as much.
A shout from one of the men fanning with the wing devices farther down the row shook her back to reality. If the language was Spanish, she didn’t recognize the dialect. Alex shouted back in the same dialect, then turned to her. She thought he was going to say something, but instead he brushed a vine leaf from her hair, smiled and then walked down the row. She watched as one of the men helped him strap on a pair of the wings. He hadn’t invited her to join him, but she followed anyway. She took off her gloves and picked up one of the wings.
They were much heavier than the men made them look.
“Don’t,” he said, reaching to take it from her.
“I’m stronger than I appear.”
He shrugged and helped her lift the wing onto her back. She felt the wetness of his sweat along his forearms as he brushed past her cheek and the hot, hard muscle of his chest as he leaned into her to lever the wing up and tug the straps snugly against her. For a moment, his body once again enveloped hers. Some part of her opened then, the part she’d kept guarded for so long.
He strapped on the second wing and then backed away and waved his arms up and down in a gliding motion. She mimicked his movement and fought for balance.
“Please,” he said, riveting her with a look that was nearly a glare, “tell me if your shoulders tire. You can hurt yourself with these.”
There were so many things one could hurt oneself with, she thought. Right now, as she watched him and copied his movements, she knew that wings were the least of her worries.
He caught the look in her eye before she could disguise it. He stared, without saying anything, then returned to fanning the vines, pushing the warm air toward them.
“This was my father’s first line of vines,” he said. He was winded and his words came slowly. “He hand-carried them from Bordeaux.” He waved toward the fans spinning in the distance. “Can’t get those in here, the rows are too tight together.” He reached the wing over the vine nearest him and fingered a cluster of grapes. “If I don’t save any others, I’m saving these. He never missed a vintage from them. I don’t intend to break his streak.” He shot her a look from under his lashes and flashed a grin. “Maybe I’m superstitious.”
The heat of the rising air drove away the bracing cold, but taking part in Alex’s fight to save the ha
rvest, to save his father’s legacy, blazed a path deep within her, warming her more than any fire ever could. And the very real welcome in his eyes, in his attitude, heated her even more.
She struggled to keep pace with him, but soon the weight of the wings winded her. She had to stop and catch her breath, and she dropped the tips of the wings to rest on the ground next to her feet. As she did, her scientist’s curiosity kicked in.
“Why not just pick the grapes and bring them in from the cold?” she asked breathlessly. She knew immediately from his look that the answer was something basic, but winemaking was something she knew little about.
“The sugar’s not right. If we bring them in now, they’ll be useless.”
A man trotted up the row toward them.
“I think we’re good here, Alex.” He stepped over and motioned for Alex to unstrap the wings. He looked at Jackie. “Her too.” It was a gentle but firm command. “I’ll leave Manuel and Clavo to watch the fire. We got the south fans working. There’s enough fuel to last.” He gazed toward the dark horizon, eyes narrowed, and then turned back to Alex. “You look terrible.”
“Always the bluebird of good news,” Alex scoffed.
“Happiness, Alex,” Jackie said. “Bluebird of happiness.” As he regarded her in the shimmering light, she thought that maybe, just maybe, happiness would do.
“Emilio, this is Dr. Brandon,” Alex said.
“Jackie,” she mumbled as Alex lifted the wings from her back. She couldn’t help rubbing her shoulders and upper arms.
“Emilio keeps me sane,” Alex said, wiping at the rivulets of sweat that rolled down his face.
“You’re doing a mighty poor job,” she said, trying for a light tone. But when she saw worry etching deeper in the older man’s face, nothing about the situation seemed light anymore.
“I think this is the worst of the cold,” Emilio said as he helped Alex unstrap the wings he still wore. “It’s stabilizing.”
She couldn’t help but feel that he was trying to ease Alex’s worry, get him to take a break. The look in Alex’s eyes told her he didn’t believe Emilio’s assurances either.
“Let us finish,” Emilio said in a firmer voice to Alex. “We have this covered.”
Alex stoked the fire in the trench and then walked to the men fanning farther down the length of it. Two more men had joined them, and Jackie could feel the cloud of warmth they generated. The old vines surrounding them, and their precious fruits, would make it through this night, at least.
Alex returned to where she stood.
“How about a very early breakfast?”
“You cooking? Like I told you, you wouldn’t want to eat mine,” she said.
“I’ll cook.”
He put his arm around her shoulders, and she leaned into him as if it were something they both were used to doing. They walked up to the castle in the beam cast by her flashlight. As they stepped onto the drawbridge—a real drawbridge—the electricity flashed on and the castle came alive. In the gleam of the strategically designed lighting, it really did look like something out of a fairy tale.
“Tell me you didn’t arrange that for effect,” she teased.
“I wish I could have,” he said with a chuckle.
She stared at the lit castle for a long moment before curiosity got the best of her. She started to ask a question, but he must’ve seen it coming.
“Can we talk about it later?” He waved his fingers toward the looming building.
“Sure. You must get tired of explaining.”
“You have no idea.”
But she did. Bringing friends from school home to Trethewen Hall hadn’t ever been easy. Though it wasn’t a castle, it might as well have been. It took time before some of her friends came to feel comfortable in her massive home. Some never did. Crossing boundaries between worlds, whether natural or cultural, was never for the faint of heart.
As Alex escorted her across the drawbridge, she shivered. She’d sweated, and the night air had swept up under her parka, chilling her.
“You’re cold,” he said, taking off the jacket he’d donned when they’d left the fires. With a gentle move, he draped it across her shoulders and tugged it close to her body.
His tender gesture undid her. She reached one hand, then the other, up to his neck. His pulse beat under her fingertips, its pace matching her own. She pulled him to her and stood on her tiptoes to touch her lips to his. His lips tasted of salt and soot. As he opened to her kiss, the deeper, honeyed flavor of him transported her. She drank deep.
She circled her arms around his neck and pulled him even closer. He groaned and crushed her lips. A bolt of power from the heavens couldn’t have shaken her more. She wanted him inside her, wanted to be inside him. Wanted him... Wanted... She simply wanted.
When his hands slid up under the layers of her clothing, heat spanned her ribs. He glided his fingers up her torso, his touch lighting a fire in its path. His hand gently molded the curve of her breast, and she gasped against his lips.
She slipped her hands to the back of his waist and tugged his sweat-soaked shirt out of his jeans, slid her palms up the taut planes of his back. Through the fabric of her jeans, she felt him hard against her thigh. She moved one hand down and ran it between them, along the length of him. The rough cloth of his jeans did nothing to disguise his arousal. His breath rumbled low, guttural and warm. As if in answer, her breath caught and she stiffened. He pulled away, scanning her face, then a half smile curved into his lips. He bent and trailed his lips along the curve of her ear, along her chin and to where her pulse pounded in her throat.
She dropped her head to the side and gave herself to him as he tasted her, as he branded her. As he staked his claim.
The breeze blew against her face, but it felt good against the heat there. Wanting to taste him in return, she eventually opened her eyes.
“I hope you don’t mind not walking,” he said as he lifted her. Her cheek pressed against his chest and his heart pulsed hard against it. He maneuvered to twist the knob of a massive door, then kicked it open. Held in his arms, she saw the rough stones of the arching ceilings and the glittering chandeliers that cast a warm light across his face as they passed under them. He didn’t look down. He balanced her against his hip and bent to lever the iron handle of another wooden door.
“As promised,” he said between heavy breaths as he pressed the door open with his shoulder. “The kitchen.”
She’d forgotten all about food.
He used his elbow to sweep something aside on an enormous stone counter, then lowered her onto the polished slab. He kept his eyes on hers as he dragged his jacket from her shoulders and then stripped off her parka. She lifted her arms so he could tug her sweater over her head. He spanned the base of her throat with his hand and then tipped her face to his. The crush of his kiss was like a tiger gorging on prey. Her own hunger met his with an answering, plundering kiss. His hands tugged at her shirt, and she helped him unbutton it. He peeled it away and cupped her breasts. His hands were callused, but warm. And she loved the way he touched her, as if her body was the answer to his need.
He tracked his lips to her already hard nipple and laved it with his tongue. His thumb and forefinger rolled her other nipple, gently, then harder, then gently again. Beyond pleasure, beyond pain, the sensations he aroused flayed her open, firing searing passages along paths of their own making. She gripped his hair, tipped her head and buried her face in the tousled mass of it. The smoky scent of the fire clung there still. Inhaling, she curved her fingers around his skull. Pressed her lips to where his pulse throbbed at his temples. He slipped his hand down and fingered her through her jeans. A moan she tried to temper escaped her. Any moment she would simply melt through the stone and into the earth below.
He leaned away from her.
“Take these off,” he said. More than an order, it was a command, though his eyes met hers and searched for any objection. When she offered none, he flipped open the button
at her waist. She arched and let him wriggle her jeans and underwear down her legs. When he straightened, she could see his heart pounding a rhythm against the thin, wet fabric of his shirt.
“You too,” was all she could utter. God, she wanted to see him. Touch him. Taste his skin.
He undid two buttons and tugged his shirt over his head.
Then he crouched and traced a trail of kisses from her nipple to her thighs. She screamed when he used his tongue to draw a hot, direct path between her legs.
He rose and kissed her mouth. She felt rather than saw him undo the button of his jeans, kick his shoes off and shimmy his jeans below his hips.
“Now,” she said as she reached out and closed her hand around his erection. He was full and hard and hot against her fingers. She stroked him and squeezed and stroked again, loving the way his breathing sped up, loving the feel of him. She shifted her hand and traced the curve of his balls, looked up to see the flash of pleasure in his eyes. Any more preliminaries would undo her. She traced back up the length of him, tightened her fingers and drew him toward her. “In me, Alex. Please.”
He pulled back a step, searched her face, and then dragged his mouth across hers in a shuddering kiss.
Heat blazed as he pressed her thighs apart and entered her. He paused for a moment, then withdrew, watched her face and drove in deeper. She bucked against him, closing her eyes, gone now to a place beyond anything she’d ever known. Her blood beat a roaring rhythm and light poured in behind her eyes and yet everything was soft, dark, and hot. When she couldn’t stand it, when she needed to not only feel him but see him, she opened her eyes and watched his face as he thrust into her again. She felt dizzy, light and hot, as if stars had entered her bloodstream and tracked fire to her every cell. She cried out and arched back against the cool stone slab. He pulled her closer to the edge and drove deeper, his fingers circling her exactly where she needed him to touch as he rocked in and out. She was dimly aware of a bowl of lemons beside her head as she arched back against the stone. He wasn’t teasing; he was driving her beyond her capacity to breathe.
“Alex—”
He thrust again, slowly, watching her face. She arched and bucked against him, meeting his thrust and driving him into her core.
“Now,” she gasped. “Please.”
He slid his hand under her bum and pulled her tighter to him. She went breathless.
He thrust, rocking her in a rhythm that was at once tender and fierce. She closed her eyes, lost in the vastness they’d entered, lost in the power their bodies had conjured. A cry broke free as her orgasm engulfed her, and she was truly lost. Then found. Adrift, yet anchored.
Everything went still and hushed, and she simply surrendered.
But Alex wasn’t done.
He eased out of her and pressed against her belly, and she felt the spreading warmth as he shuddered and released against her. He bent and rested his head on her shoulder, the ragged draws of his breath warm against her ear. A moment later, he kissed her, and their lips beat a matched rhythm to the pounding of his heart against hers.
He lifted away, and a clouding came into his eyes.
“I meant to go slow,” he said. “I meant to—”
She pressed a shaking finger against his lips.
“If you had, I might’ve lost my mind,” she said. The answering look in his eyes told her he’d felt the same.
She felt faint, needed to gain her bearings. Never had any experience, any man, rocked her as he had. And though she felt the bottomless, vulnerable feeling starting to slip into her, her body zinged with life. She put her palms against the edge of the counter and leaned back. He had the most astonishing body she’d ever seen. Muscle layered upon muscle, as if motion itself resided deep within, waiting for an opportunity to spring to life. He took a breath, watching her watching him, and the hunger in his eyes sent a shiver along her spine.
When he saw the shiver that racked her, he reached to drag her shirt from where it had landed on the stone island. “You’re cold,” he said.
There was nothing cold about her. She ran a hand along the muscles of his chest, felt the heat there, and the power, and shook her head.
“This is wet,” he said, fingering her shirt. “Wool is better. Best to just have the sweater.”
Her heart did a little flip as he gently pulled her to him and helped her tug her sweater over her head. When she popped her head out, he smiled.
“Better?” he asked as he pulled it down to her waist.
She nodded and wriggled to the edge of the counter, savoring the tenderness of his touch as he leaned down and gently kissed her throat before finding her lips again. He went hard against her thigh, and the power she’d felt just moments before bolted through her and sent a spasm deep into her belly.
“Want to try a softer surface?” he asked as he slid his hands up the bare skin under her sweater.
She nodded. She wanted to try everything.
He took her hand and led her wordlessly from the kitchen and up a curving stone staircase.